Students take standardized test amid conflicts

SEOUL, July 13 (Yonhap) -- Sixth, 9th and 11th grade students across the country
began taking much-contended standardized tests on Tuesday amid boycotts by
liberal teachers organizations and skepticism from some education
superintendents.
The statewide exams, conducted by the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology, have been regularly administered since 2008, when standardized
testing and reporting were revived by the conservative government after a 10-year
hiatus under the liberal rule. Some 1.9 million students will take the exams in
about 11,000 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide over the next two
days.
Standardized testing has long been the center of controversy amid concerns that
it could be used to rank schools and spur fiercer competition among students
already struggling with heavy academic loads for college admission. Some
teachers, parents and students have declared a boycott against the tests and
planned to take field trips in lieu of the tests.
The education ministry has toughened up over the resistance, sending an official
letter to the 16 municipal and provincial education offices across the country
that warned "any circuitous attempt to avoid the testing by preparing an
alternate program or any act for encouragement of non-attendance will be
illegal." The letter suggests a possible termination of teachers who support the
boycott.
Tension mounted, however, as some newly elected education chiefs of municipal and
provincial levels are skeptical about the effects of the nationwide testing and
may defy the ministry's stern resolve. Kwak No-hyun, Seoul's liberal education
superintendent, sent a letter to schools in the city saying, "Should a student
express his or her clear intention not to take the test, they should be provided
with an alternative program so they may not be alienated."
Kwak also directed that absentees should be reported as "miscellaneous absence"
instead of the more detrimental "absence without leave" as recommended by the
education ministry.
Liberal education chiefs like Kwak, totaling six out of 16, vowed to give greater
autonomy to school principals.
In the first such testing in 2008, about 330 students failed to attend, and seven
teachers in Seoul who led their boycott, all members of the Korean Teachers and
Education Workers Union, were afterward fired for disobeying the official
guidelines.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)

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